Bruce Anderson is The Spectator's drink critic, and was the magazine's political editor
I have a friend who brought shame on his family. Rupert Birch was educated at Westminster and the House. Descending from a long line of writers, artists and journalists, he was admirably qualified for a distinguished career of cultivated indigence. Instead, he became a banker. But the fall of man can be followed by redemption.
As one approaches St James’s Street from Pall Mall, there is an enticing window full of whisky bottles. Part of Berry Bros & Rudd’s temple complex, it is devoted to Glenrothes, a Speyside Malt. The bottles do not look as if they were designed by a marketing man and their labels largely consist of tasting
Puritanism is like sea water. When it meets resistance at one point, it promptly finds another route. I came to that conclusion during the Tory conference in Manchester. If you passed a couple of Tory representatives, they might well be discussing community. Every ‘community’, every diversity, that you could think of was in view, plus
At Tory party conferences circa 1980, there would usually be a day when the Daily Telegraph team looked glum. One would enquire why. ‘Dunno why I’m bothering to write this. Word from London is that we won’t have a paper tomorrow. The inkies’ll stop the presses.’ In those days, the print workers’ unions would always
We should all eat humbly. There is no sense in foraying to far-flung continents in search of fancy victuals. We should be content with the near-at-hand: the harvests of our fields, hills, rivers, seas and moors. The Chinaman has his bowl of rice, the Irishman his cauldron of potatoes. At this time of year, our
Forty years ago this English summer, Australia was stricken by a cultural catastrophe. The damage to national morale has reverberated down the decades. It has contributed to the implosion of Australian cricket and the loss of the Ashes, now irrevocable. The disaster occurred when the only two intellectuals in the convict settlements both bought one-way
Ou sont les bouteilles d’antan? With the onset of middle life, a good bottle can take on a melancholy aspect. Ou sont les bouteilles d’antan? With the onset of middle life, a good bottle can take on a melancholy aspect. The other day, I was lucky enough to be at the drinking of a ’67
About ten thousand years ago, man learned to control fire. That was one of the most important events in pre-history: a crucial part of the transition from a humanoid past to a human future. But the flames were domesticated, not tamed. Ten millennia later, fire is still a killer and a destroyer. In our cities,
In Rome, there is a palace which is the capital of the world’s smallest state. In Rome, there is a palace which is the capital of the world’s smallest state. The medieval Church had many mansions. As well as orders devoted to prayer and contemplation, there were other bodies, for whom the way of the
A limestone escarpment meanders south from Dijon. The product of prehistoric geological conflicts, it is now an arcadian idyll: the Côte-d’Or. Ducal Burgundy was one of the hauts-lieux of civilisation, and its resonances are all around you. But even before there was a duchy, Charlemagne enjoyed the wines of Burgundy, as had the Romans. That
I had an old friend — now, sadly, dead — who spent his final years in terror of his wife. I had an old friend — now, sadly, dead — who spent his final years in terror of his wife. By the time he reached man’s estate, he had developed a taste for good claret.
It’s unwise to rely on the Gospels for an accurate description of that first Good Friday ‘And yet we call this Friday good.’ So what actually happened on the first Good Friday? The balance of probability is heavily against those who would dismiss the whole affair as a mere addition to the literature of mythology.
As soon as I moved beyond childhood pieties, I became a bigoted atheist. Like Richard Dawkins, I found it personally offensive that anyone could be so naive and stupid as to worship God. Over the years, that has softened. Although I cannot believe, I no longer think it absurd to do so. One has to
In equal measure, this book is fascinating and irritating. The ‘Hi, guys!’ style grates throughout. From this, it is tempting to conclude that Tony Blair is incorrigibly insincere. But that is not the whole story. Although Blair is no friend to truth or self-knowledge, this is an involuntary study in self-revelation. The most revealing sentence
It is bizarre. As he often demonstrated in the House of Commons, Tony Blair knows how to use words. He could also have mobilised a team to help him write his memoirs. Instead, it is all his own work, and the words mutinied. This book is not just badly written. It is atrociously written. For
Alastair Campbell had a cynical term for the attempts to recruit Tories and others to Tony Blair’s big tent: ‘Operation Gobble’. In 1916, the Tories went into coalition with Lloyd George’s liberals. They gobbled them, spat out Lloyd George and reduced the Liberals to third-party status. In 1931, the Tories formed another coalition, with some
It is almost impossible to compare a mere Leader of the Opposition to our greatest peacetime Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. But three points should be borne in mind. The first is that back in 1979, no one was predicting that Mrs Thatcher would become a world-famous figure. She was governing a troubled nation with a
When Nick Clegg assures us that he is a man of principle, he is telling the truth. He does have one deeply held principle: the ground of his political being. He believes in a federal Europe. Europe is not only his continent. It is his country. But there is a problem. Such views are not
A Pall Mall club: the members’ table at lunchtime: unease and discontent. Everyone wants rid of Gordon Brown. No one is sure about David Cameron. I am asked the questions that I have been asked a hundred times before. What does he believe in? Will he be up to it? The questioners think that their
Actions are being taken in the British people’s name which should make us feel appalled. The government’s behaviour towards the British army has been despicable. In Northern Ireland, there are plans to give an amnesty to IRA terrorists who were never prosecuted because they went on the run. Though an unappealing prospect, that could be